human, your plight, when waking, is to choose from the words
that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that
tangled among them
and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life (Marie Howe, “The Meadow”).
It could be something.
It could be everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life (Mary Oliver, “The Invitation”).
What did Rilke mean?
I didn’t know, so I looked it up.
The line about changing your life
is the final one in the poem, “Archaic Torso of Apollo” and
according to some experts that wrote about it on poets.org,
changes the meaning of his poem,
from one about simply admiring a powerful work of art
to one about being called by that work,
compelled to pay attention
and to be forever altered by it.
You must change your life is not a request
but a demand
and a description of what is already happening.
transform
redo
remake
alter
switch
distort
substitute
revise
in flux
disrupt
unsettle
derail
modify
refresh
Things that change your life:
- Getting up from a chair too quickly, twisting your knee wrong, temporarily and partially dislocating your kneecap.
- Revelations
- Resignations
- The Seasons, in order of most to least: Autumn, Summer, Winter, Spring
- The end of something: open swim, the summer, the semester, a book
- The beginning of something: winter running, an online class, a poem
- Breathing deeply.
- Breathing at all.
- Not breathing ever again on September 30, 2009.
- The uncontrolled division of abnormal cells
- Deciding not to cut your hair and seeing how long it can grow.
- Going to an animal shelter and adopting a dog
- A faulty gene in chromosome 11 (region 11q12-q13) which is also known as VMD2.
- Turning 42, then 43
- New schools
- Starting to run at the age of 36, almost 37
- Leaving the house and turning to the right instead of the left when taking the dog for a walk
- Slowing down your running pace
- Erosion as the result of wind, water, freezing temperatures, a clogged gutter, a dangerously incompetent, narcissistic and hate-filled leader
- Switching from Avenir to Helvetica
- Asking a question: the right one or the wrong one
- Wetsuits, better goggles, nose plugs
- A new water filter in the refrigerator
- Laughing instead of crying
- Memorizing a poem.
- Swimming an extra loop at open swim and experiencing the glow of the sun lower in the sky.
- Paying attention to the trees and their leaves
- Cataloging the sounds and the smells and the landmarks on your run
Change is Just Change
The thing you
Really need to know
About change is that it’s
Not always
Sparkly and
Fantastic
Opening up new worlds, the
Right ones, the
Most meaningful ones.
All change is just change and some change feels
Terribly sad, making us
Inconsolable while
Other change is
Needed, wanted,
Sought after; lifting us out of our stagnant lives.
The Best Season
So many poems lament
the fall
as a time of dying
and grieving for what has been
and will never be again.
And it is.
September, in particular.
But, even so,
fall is exciting,
filled with crackling energy
and mystery
and burnt and rusty colors
and crunching leaves
and muted light
and cooler nights
and crisp air
and better running,
much better running.